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(forw) [skeptic] On the art of becoming an uncarved rock (was: Please allow me to introduce myself...)
by Rick Moen 12 Nov '16

12 Nov '16

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> ----- Date: Tue, 8 Nov 2016 22:56:53 -0800 From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> To: skeptic(a)linuxmafia.com Subject: [skeptic] On the art of becoming an uncarved rock (was: Please allow me to introduce myself...) Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already. Quoting Eva Durant (durant.eva(a)gmail.com) > what can I say? Maybe the unwashed were a tad disappointed with Obama? > Remember, he was elected twice... Just doing a Futurelearn course on "The > mind is flat" - we are very fickle us humans - maybe in the US even more > so... > never mind. He won't be able to do much either. > Unless that 0.1% really got madly panicky and ready for a 1984. Dear Eva: There's a perceptual bias that people unfortunately labour under, that says that definitive election results can be expected the same day, and that whatever's available the same day needs to be considered the outcome. This attitude of impatience doesn't mislead people 95% of the time -- the times when the margin of victory is clear, early on. In the other 5% of cases, there's really no alternative but to wait -- and people really don't want to hear that. They want elections to be settled on Internet time. When elections are close, or when elections are atypical and difficult to model, this bias leads people into adopting early, shaky guesses as if they were fact. Here in most-placid, Democratic Party-dominated California, it's been obvious all along that the state's bloc of 55 Electoral College votes would go to the Democratic Party ticket (which ended up being Clinton/Kaine). But even here, it's actually not even remotely possible to fully model and predict the statewide vote on Election Day -- if only because of the several categories of ballots that are counted only slowly _after_ Election day: all mailed-in ballots, all provisional ballots, and all early-voting ballots. To picked mailed-in ballots as an example: As long as a mail-in ballot has been postmarked by election day and received within three days, it must be counted, by state law. However, as it happens, the third day will be Veterans' Day, a Federal holiday with no mail delivery, with the effect that mail-in ballots received even by Monday, November 14, 2016 are valid and must be counted. So, California's Secretary of State cannot even in principle know fully what the results of the election are until _six days_ after Election Day. I'm really not familiar with the specific situation in the other 49 states plus District of Columbia, but I'll bet there are similar problems everywhere else -- and this is not what those of us conditioned to a 24-hour news cycle and instant Internet-timescale results want to hear. But it's the cold, hard, unpleasant truth: In a close election, you just have to wait. Days, maybe even weeks. It _is_ apparently a close election. The interim results are (mostly, in many places) all we have yet, and are at best poorly reliable and subject to upset by later, better data. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to take go on holiday and wait for futher developments, remembering that nothing actually need be settled until Monday, December 19th, when the Electoral College casts its votes. Meanwhile, I'm going to resume watching 'Borgen', the Danish show about the story of an effective, powerful, rational, intelligent female head of government. Catch y'all on the other side. -- Cheers, A woman's place is in the House, Rick Moen the Senate, and the White House. rick(a)linuxmafia.com McQ! (4x80) _______________________________________________ skeptic mailing list skeptic(a)linuxmafia.com http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic To reach the listadmin, mail rick(a)linuxmafia.com ----- End forwarded message -----

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Wikileaks, Hackers, Russia and the US Election
by David Turk 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

Opinion: Wikileaks has lost my respect, as they backing Julian Assange's revenge attack on the USA. Not that I favour either candidate. Opinion: I have to think this was Julian Assange's plan all along? http://www.9news.com.au/world/2016/11/07/07/59/hillary-clinton-emails-no-ch… The FBI's review of new emails did not uncover any wrongdoing by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and the bureau has not changed its July recommendation not to charge her, Director James Comey has said. More... Julian Assange's Most Incendiary Interview: "Hillary Clinton Is The Central Cog Of The Establishment" | Zero Hedge http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-05/julian-assanges-most-incendiary-in… Opinion: It seems his plan is just to destabilise USA politics full stop. More... http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2016/s4570745.htm EMMA ALBERICI: So just back to the FBI, it says it hasn't found anything, obviously, that troubles them in particular. But a number of Hillary Clinton's email had been leaked through Wikileaks and we hear most recently suggestions that Chelsea Clinton's $3 million wedding was paid for at least in part from the Clinton charitable foundation, presumably revelations like that will hurt as well? KIM BEAZLEY: White noise really now in that part of the debate. I think one of the countervailing effects of the leaks as a source, it is quite clear, according to the heads of all 17 American intelligence agencies, that this is a product of penetration of the system by a Russian hackers and then distributed, probably with the Kremlin support. And Americans do not like being manipulated by foreigners, and particularly Russians. So that at least has had some degree of an offset, so when people come out with statements about Chelsea's wedding or whatever, then they say, well, do you want to dance for the Russians? That is the sort of countervailing pressure on that. But talking about unprecedented things, the unprecedented presidential element of the campaign, and the unprecedented involvement of Russia in domestic American politics. EMMA ALBERICI: Over the weekend you said that Wikileaks was leaking on behalf of Putin. Did you mean they were somehow in cahoots? KIM BEAZLEY: Well, I think the materials were placed in their hands clearly by a leak from the Russians. The decision as to how to deploy it would have been calculated by them too. Contrary to the claims of what they are about as whistle blowing and, and, and transparency, these haven't been dumped, you know, one could believe that if the day they received, they dumped it, which is what they normally do. Instead it has been parcelled out tactically. And in the parcelling out of it tactically is what lends voracity to that claim. Opinion: Yes I have seen Wikileaks media report from this morning, and I’m still not convinced.

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Not even a plurality
by Rick Moen 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

With 92 percent of the vote tallied, Secretary Clinton leads Trump in the popular vote by 230,000 votes, and that gap is expected to widen. That doesn't change the outcome, but proves that the inevitable talk about a 'historic mandate' from that sleazemeister campaign director Kellyanne Conway and others is just more Trumpian bullshit. Clinton, not Trump, was the American people's actual pick -- but that's just not the way the electoral mechanics works. As always, ending the recurring embarrassment of the Electoral College putting into office someone who was not the nation's majority or -=even=- plurality choice will not happen, because the prevailing faction always feels an incentive to preserve and perpetuate the election mechanisms that put them there.

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(forw) To summarize the summary of a summary:
by Rick Moen 07 Nov '16

07 Nov '16

In which I taunt a second time my friend Ruben in Brooklyn, the aforementioned guy who loudly supports the short-fingered vulgarian. ----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> ----- Date: Sun, 6 Nov 2016 21:34:00 -0800 From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> To: hangout(a)nylxs.com Subject: To summarize the summary of a summary: Deirdre Saoirse Moen retweeted: Victor Laszlo @Impolitics - Nov 2 This will always be remembered as the presidential election in which the KKK, the KGB, and the FBI all supported the same candidate. Also recently retweeted by the same worthy: Dear Americans: Go ahead, vote for the guy with the loud voice who hates minorities, threatens to imprison his opponents, doesn't give a f?ck about democracy, and claims he alone can fix everything. What could possibly go wrong? Good luck. -- The people of Germany #beentheredonethat ----- End forwarded message -----

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How does this happen?
by Russell Coker 07 Nov '16

07 Nov '16

http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/11/02/starbucks-sticks-it-to-donald-trump-… This makes as much sense as the crazy anti-systemd stuff. Why and how does it happen? -- Sent from my Nexus 6P with K-9 Mail.

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October surprise from FBI Director James Comey
by Rick Moen 04 Nov '16

04 Nov '16

----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> ----- Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2016 18:32:48 -0700 From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> To: skeptic(a)linuxmafia.com Subject: Re: [skeptic] Fw: Re: Check out WikiLeaks Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already. Quoting Terry W. Colvin (fortean1(a)mindspring.com) [Snip conspiracy-minded material from one George Armstrong] > This reply by George Armstrong makes several assumptions about the > e-mail server(s) used by Hillary Clinton. I can't follow the history > at all. Perhaps Rick Moen and others can inform us of what may have > happened in this chain of events. I don't follow the loose talk about this stuff very closely, but perhaps I'm qualified to comment because I own/operate an e-mail server. ;-> Some law enforcement agency, perhaps NYPD, is claimed at some point in the recent past to have executed a search warrant on home computers owned by ex-Representative Anthony Weiner and his estranged, now-separated wife Huma Abedin. Huma Abedin is now Secretary Clinton's top aide. The actual investigation appears to be over claims that Weiner e-mailed lewd photographs to a 15-year-old girl. The only thing otherwise that's recently happened is that FBI Director James Comey, who is coincidentally a longtime Republican Party member, sent an extremely vague single-page letter to Congress on Oct. 28 that caused all sorts of uproar. It said that new emails had surfaced in a case unrelated to the closed investigation into whether Hillary Clinton or her aides had mishandled classified information, and that the messages “appear to be pertinent to the investigation”, but that "the FBI cannot yet assess whether or not this material may be significant". You can read that here, but it really doesn't say anything more specific: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/28/us/politics/fbi-letter.html Speculation is that he's referring to some e-mail or e-mails from someone to someone else about something that (as it turned out later) was found on one-time couple Weiner and Abedin's laptop computer, but neither Comey nor anyone else is saying anything else at all, and it's quite possible that Director Comey doesn't even know those things. Anyway, Federal agents have been going through what are said to be a fairly incredibly large number of e-mail on Weiner and Abedin's laptop computer -- I saw "650,000 emails" mentioned in a _Wall Street Journal_ story -- and that thousands of out of those hundreds of thousands might have been to of from the Clinton private e-mail server during the period when Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State during the first Obama administration, which might have been work-related for Clinton or of course not. There's a prediction that figuring out what if anything is of interest to the FBI in that avalanche of e-mail will occupy many weeks, but the point is that there's no indication that Secretary Clinton is the focus of any investigation in this matter at all. It is entirely against all norms for FBI to make comment on investigations, especially if it might raise waves right before an election, and Comey has gotten strong criticism from predecessors and pretty much everyone else for doing so, some of that criticism kindly on the order of "Jim Comey's a good guy but he really made a bad mistake here" and some a lot less so. Standard procedure is for FBI to investigate wherever the leads seem to indicate, using warrants and other legal means, and eventually those either produce indictments or don't. When FBI is doing its job, people they're looking into don't know that they're under investigation until long after the fact when they've been either indicted or not. Separately from that, Russian computer criminals furnished WikiLeaks with a dump of e-mails to/from Democratic campaign manager John Podesta after he was tricked into clicking a "phishing" e-mail in his GMail account, giving the criminals access to all mail he'd sent or received, and a bunch of those were internal campaign communication for the Clinton campaign. For the Secretary of State to operate a separate private e-mail server and send/receive work e-mails there is against department policy but _not_ criminal behaviour, i.e., not a violation of law. Which is how it's been done many times in the past, e.g., by Colin Powell and others. And separately from -that-, there's been a whole lot of loose blather accusing Secretary Clinton of destruction of evidence or various alleged crimes for operating a family e-mail server at all on which sometimes mails related to her job arrived or originated, none of it really amounting to anything. See this column by conservative legal scholar Eugene Volokh, for context: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/08/26/no-hill… And Benghazi blah blah blah blah blah. I might have missed what the question was. ;-> _______________________________________________ skeptic mailing list skeptic(a)linuxmafia.com http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic To reach the listadmin, mail rick(a)linuxmafia.com ----- End forwarded message ----- ----- Forwarded message from Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> ----- Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2016 20:27:08 -0700 From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> To: skeptic(a)linuxmafia.com Subject: Re: [skeptic] Fw: Re: Check out WikiLeaks Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already. Because I'm occasionally a bit of a masochist, I've been teasing my Trump-supporting friend Ruben Safir of Brooklyn. Since some of what I replied to him in the latest of a long series of exchanges is probably relevant to Terry's query, I reproduce that below. Date: Tue, 1 Nov 2016 11:54:50 -0700 From: Rick Moen <rick(a)linuxmafia.com> To: hangout(a)nylxs.com Subject: Re: [Hangout-NYLXS] Meanwhile, in the land of 'Who, me?' Hey, look whose killfile doesn't work! Maybe you've decided you'd like a lifeline back from CloudCuckooLand to conventional reality? Quoting Ruben Safir (mrbrklyn(a)panix.com) [...] > Meanwhile, this is not the role of the Secretary of State so either it > is lost upon you, which I doubt because your a very smart man, that > she is under criminal investigation.... This is not clearly the case, at all. FBI is attempting to determine whether unstated persons might have committed unstated crimes. Certainly Clinton _might_ be the focus of FBI's current interest. But nobody outside the alt-right, white-power Trumpista crowd has said so, and certainly the FBI hasn't. In the current matter (the mind-bogglingly vague Director Comey letter, dropped into the press 11 days before the election), there has been no indication whatsoever about what is being investigated, nor what was in the e-mails Comey spoke of on Anthony Weiner's computing device. It's a whole lot of non-information and innuendo. He said merely that e-mails had been found on Weiner's computer that 'could be linked to the probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails', but absolutely nothing about what on God's green earth that means, nor about what those e-mails contain or who sent what to whom. And he lamely added, "I don't know whether or not this [new] material may be significant." And then he refused to explain himself, and waltzed off in a cloud of zero public transparency (the same transparency that he claimed was his byword and objective, a few months ago during his July public appearance). There is actually no reason to believe that he even knows _what_ the mysterious e-mails say -- judging by his comprehensive talking around that point. It is inherent in FBI 'investigations' that one often has no clear idea whether a criminal indictment will be issued by some AG at the end of the process or not, and if so against whom. You always have to wait until you see whether FBI have decided there's something to refer to the Justice Department, and if Justice Department decides to open a case. What _is_ clear is that Director Comey went (through misadventure?) rogue, ignoring long-standing guidelines that the Justice Department or the FBI not release information about investigations within 60 days of an election. And Comey's publicly a longtime Republican. What's bad about that is that this is indistinguishable from a Joe McCarthy slur in violation of the ethics of his office, and against the advice of the Justice Department, tactically timed so that the truth cannot be known until long after the innuendo's damage has occurred. I don't think it _was_ that (but rather a mistake), but it's unfortunately indistinguishable in its effects from one. Comey's basically made sure nobody will ever respect or trust him again. He'll be paying the personal cost the rest of his life, including probably losing his job shortly after the election no matter _who_ takes the Presidency. Because at best he's revealed to be a political liability, loose cannon, and clumsy hack, and at worst a hatchet-man rather than an FBI Director. This colossal professional mistake -- again, being decently charitable about it being a gaffe rather than a tactic -- provably isn't anywhere near enough to change the election outcome for the Presidency, in part because there just aren't undecideds left unless a few hermits and fishermen swept out to sea suddenly show up -- and because 22 million people have already cast early-voting and absentee ballots. But it's possible a few Senate seats might swing. I honestly do feel bad for Director Comey. Pretty much everyone has commented that this was a clear, large blunder, but I doubt he has any avenue remaining for fixing that mistake. > they are investigating her __routinely hiding government documents__ > on her private email server in order to hide them from other > government agencies which are assigned to oversee her in her role as a > government official. No, they haven't said what they're currently investigating. Nor whom they are currently suspecting, and what they're suspecting that person or persons of. > One is private business. The other is government business. Even you > can understand they are not the same thing. As has been repeatedly established including by the head of the FBI, this is a bad practice indulged by her and by many at the State Department, before her -- that is not illegal in itself, but against State Department guidelines having no legal force. And she stopped doing it because it was a bad idea, and admitted that it had been a mistake, period. Following which an investigation occurred concluding in no grounds for prosecution. (Which can change in the future, but that is always the case.) All of the efforts to turn that into criminal activity have so far been as laughable as the "Hilary assassinated Vince Foster" and 'Hillary assassinated Ron Brown" idiocy, and I have little expectation that the unbelievably non-specific Comey letter will do so, either. It seems obvious to me that the idea is to drum up a furious round of innuendo for nine more days, and then it'll all vanish into Breitbart / Infowars conspiracy hysteria, and no longer have big money behind promoting it. And you'll have been among the many who'll have been played for a sucker. So, you willing to bet that $100, or not? I'm willing to take your money at the end of 2017. [RM note: Safir had claimed Secretary Clinton would be 'in jail' in the near future] Oh, and by the way, you never addressed upthread questions like: So, here's a question that I figure even a voter willing to fall for the Border Wall Paid for by Mexico scam can understand: Let's say you're an Algerian ISIS terrorist looking to commit destruction inside the USA. Do you (1) apply for immigration to the USA, going through the current incarnation of 'extreme vetting', or (2) get a tourist visa? Speaking of that, the very easiest way (out of many) to see that the Border Wall Paid for by Mexico is idiotic is to remember that over half of all illegal immigrants in the USA arrived lawfully and merely stayed after their visas expired. Border walls inherently cannot address that. Mr. Trump: Thinks global warming is a hoax invented by the Chinese(!). Seriously alleged in public that there is no California drought. Doesn't understand the military and intends to 'fire generals'. Thinks he understands military matters better than professional military people do (and in that as so many other things is a poster child for Dunning-Kruger effect. Has been a serial abuser of women and then lies about that. Has a cavalier attitude to the use of nuclear weapons. Would casually take steps to undermine NATO. Proposes massive deregulation to benefit the rich. Is incompetent in foreign affairs. Is incompetent in basic economics. Wants to introduce economic protectionism and thinks this won't hurt us. Has the self-control of a two-year-old. Is delusional (or worse) about immigration. Is happy to base his entire campaign on sexism, racial hatred, religious bigotry, nativism, hatred of immigrants, and conspiracy thinking. Encourages lawbreaking. Uses the rhetoric of a 1930s dictator, except dumbed down to 4th grade reading levels. Whimsically wants to discard just about every democratic norm, the First Amendment, and peaceful transfer of Executive Branch power. Wants to send reproductive freedom back to the Dark Ages. Goes into Twitter rage-spews over 1970s beauty contestants at 3-5am. Goes on Twitter attacks against bereaved Gold Star parents. The list can go on and on. One of these candidates is flawed but competent, the other would be a menace even as dogcatcher, and cannot be taken seriously. He's not the leader of anything. He's an emotionally labile buffoon. And the Comey bullshit is a fart in the wind, compared to that. _______________________________________________ skeptic mailing list skeptic(a)linuxmafia.com http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/skeptic To reach the listadmin, mail rick(a)linuxmafia.com ----- End forwarded message -----

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Unbelievable II - The Year of the Dogs (sketch)
by Peter Ross 03 Nov '16

03 Nov '16

I just went to bed, and then I dreamed this. Or is it real? A country gone to the dogs. Pauline Hanson stands tall in front of the pack, holding the sausage promising legislation going through the Senate. The Turnbull dogs gets pushed forward by the leading attack dog Tony He would grab the sausage anytime. Brandis dog and Dutton dog have their day in the sun. Morrison dog just behind. One day he will lead the pack, today he smiles seeing how Turnbull dog gets agitated. So close to the sausage Pauline is holding! Woof! Woof! He knows he would be the same. A bit further away the Labor pack. They do not like the food Pauline is dishing out. But one day she will be needed, in case Shorten dog has its day? Shorten dog is sniffing the bums and wonders what to do next. He always thought, the fish & chips lady is harmless for dogs. After all, that is not the favourite dog food! Bummer. She managed to get the key to the dog food shed. That makes the kennel pretty wild! Woof! Woof! In the corner sits John Howard, the dog whistle in his hand. From "We decide who comes" to "Pauline decides who comes" in just 15 years. I am waking up and feel proud. Finally, it is time to get the brown shirts out. Proudly looking into the mirror before I am striding out into the New Liberated Australia! One Woman. One Voice. One Nation. One Führer. Pauline, I am ready. Just start kicking, as we did before! Asians, Muslims, Jews or refugees, whatever. Go Pauline! Heil Pauline!

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unbelievable
by Russell Coker 01 Nov '16

01 Nov '16

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/10/20/1584963/-Donald-Trump-calls-on-H… What's wrong with that country? -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Re: [luv-talk] Correct place to list free hardware
by Rohan McLeod 24 Oct '16

24 Oct '16

Jesse Stevens via luv-main wrote: > > On 23 Oct 2016 7:02 a.m., "David Turk via luv-main" > <luv-main(a)luv.asn.au <mailto:luv-main@luv.asn.au>> wrote: > > > > Before I reply fully, what general location are you? > > > > State, Suburb like. > > > > Personally I'm out of Melbourne near Ballarat, but the hardware in > question is in the CBD in Melbourne. > > I'll post here with specifics when I get access to it all again (next > few weeks or so). > > I should probably also ask in this thread if other open tech is > suitable to post here (we have 4 or so 3d printers based on the reprap > printer firmware that we're looking to sell cheaply to homes where > they'll be used for more than printing Yoda figurines). > Just as a matter of interest is there any standardised way of describing the "print resolution" of 3D printers; I notice there seems to be considerable variation in the 'roughness' of the finished printed artefacts; between top-end and economy 3D printer versions ? regards Rohan McLeod

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Fwd: Auto reply: Re: unbelievable
by Russell Coker 23 Oct '16

23 Oct '16

/^From: .*davemarkturk(a)me.com/ REJECT /^From: .*davemarkturk(a)me.com/ REJECT I have just added the above line to /etc/postfix/reject on my mail server. header_checks = regexp:/etc/postfix/reject The above line in /etc/postfix/main.cf makes Postfix check the headers. I'm not interested in auto-responses to list mail, anyone who feels the same way can use the same settings. ---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Auto reply: Re: [luv-talk] unbelievable Date: Sunday, 23 October 2016, 12:09:10 AM AEDT From: davemarkturk(a)me.com To: russell-sender(a)coker.com.au Hi, if you are asking me a direct question, please consider asking the email list first with ALL relevant details included. If you get no response please send me a fresh email as per the below address, as you have tried to contact me via the wrong email address, used for group list discussion only. Please resend your fresh email to this address: davemarkturk(a)gmail.com if you feel you need to. Note: All your direct emails sent via either davemarkturk(a)me.com or davemarkturk(a)icloud.com are automatically deleted, and will be missed by me if you don't resend to the above address. ----- Magic happens. David Turk is a Consultant/Programmer, Dreamer, Jokester, Geek, Apple fan, Netizen since 1996, Occasional writer, Occasional Web Producer, Chocoholic, Science Fiction fan, and a mild Collingwood supporter. He also co-founded AUSOM ( http://www.ausom.net.au/ ) in 1980. ----------------------------------------- -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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